Meeting notes

This page serves as the index for SkullSpace meeting minutes.

Minutes from previous years

Meeting_notes (2016)

Meeting_notes (2015)

Meeting_notes (2014)

Meeting_notes (2013)

Meeting_notes (2012)

Meeting_notes (2011)

Meeting_notes (2010)

AGM, February 27, 2018 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• bell rung 6:00pm
• do we need to name actual officers as per our incorporation??? right now we just have directors. Look into this!

• candidates
  • Michael kozakewich
  • Ryan Wall
  • Stefan Asmundsson
  • Chris Johnson
  • Ben Moulden
• DO WE HAVE QUORUM? -- YES
• FINANCES
  • finances are steady due to frequent small events e.g. recent synth event
  • we have a fair amount of unrealized dues e.g. members who owe a few months
  • we need to be more aggressive about handling late dues collections
  • we are at approximately 60 members
    • out of the 60, 7 are in arrears on their dues
  • current financial synopsis: "treading water"
  • goal: grow enough reserve capital to cover 3 months of expenses
• General banter:
  • we should market to students more
• ELECTION - the board is elected by default
• bylaw changes - ALL PROPOSALS PASSED!!!!!!
• MEETING ADJOURNED 7:02PM

December 19, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• The official monthly meeting was rescheduled to tonight because holiday.

• Finances
  • Stable slight increase due to lower costs (hydro bill)
  • Having food drives food donations
  • Membership numbers good at 57
• New website
  • Set to go live Friday Dec 22 possible launch party.
  • Any members that can provide content would be good ie) project.
  • Does any member own the Skullspace Instagram... we should ask on announce/discuss
  • Website can post blog posts to social media but we need credentials for Skullspaces social media accounts.

• The Gary effect will be hosting a gift give way for low income families. If interested visit garyeffect.ca

• Carl's enclosure nearly complete just wire routing and dust management left.

November 28, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• 13 members present (no recap of last meeting minutes)
• Lively discussion of how to generate revenue and events for Skullspace
  • Liquor licensing in the space
    • Have to get space up to code and investigate what blockers there are (fire inspection)
    • There should be past emails to investigate what is exactly needed
  • Running weekly/monthly events at a bar
  • Promote Skullspace as a coworking space
  • If we can separate the classroom from the rest of the space, we can make the classroom nicer and then potentially host events there (small scale dance parties?)
  • Running classes for things that our members are good at
    • programming/3d printer/CNC Router/Soldering, video games, art, designing things
  • colocation services and/or vm services
  • Hackathons at the space
  • Discussed having a paid position for volunteer/event coordinator to run things
• Discussed how to make the space nicer
  • Purchase good furniture and replace crappy furniture
  • 'Recycling run' is needed to get rid of unused junk (MAME machine, etc.)
  • Justin wants to make curtains to separate the classroom from the rest of the space

October 31, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Projector kerfuffle w.r.t. pinball
• Financials
  • Net worth a little lower, but we're still healthy.
  • We had a large snacks/drinks expense, but we've paid nearly all of it off and we'll be seeing good returns next month.
  • A. Michael made a pre-paying account for our summer insurance, so we'll never be hit by surprise by that.
  • Our membership is paying our rent and a little extra; donations, snacks, events, and such pay for everything else.
• The 3D printer (which we bought in 2013!) is driving Edwin bonkers, and he'd like to buy a new printer. Is anyone willing to pitch in for a Prusa I3 Mk3?
• We will contact the landlord about putting up signs telling people not to park under the fire escape?
• Troy is taking pictures of the space for our website.

September 26, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• 9 members present
• Recap of last meeting minutes
• Financials:
  • A little lower this month than last, but still about a month in the bank
  • Big insurance payments are now done
  • Michael to add an account to average those insurance fees across a whole year for better budgeting / foresight
  • Drinks tend to sell better than food
  • Quite a bit more in membership dues compared to last year
• Unit upstairs (cheaper by $600/month) is becoming available soon - Michael to reach out to Bob Brown. Will look into it and report back.
• Anti-social: Michael won't be running it, but Wayne sounded like he might want to. Best not to rush it to ensure a better turnout. Michael will talk to Wayne to make plans.
  • Michael wants to eventually plan a smaller, quieter, more geeky night targeted towards members of SkullSpace and their friends.
• Papers we love is at the space tomorrow. Some fancy text to speech stuff.
• Communications strikeforce has met. More coming soon.
• Meeting over 6:42pm

August 29, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Intros
• 8 members including Michael, Stefan, Thor, Edwin, Keith...
• financials
  • we have 1 month rent as backup
  • downward trend due to insurance will continue for another month.
  • events made August somewhat profitable
• Lockpicking event happened - it went well
• Ingress event happened - it went well
• attendees at lockpicking event had trouble swiping in at front door, possibly due to to much use
• member reports getting lock in the space because motion sensor is flakey
  • get a sign asap
  • look into installing pushbar
• member suggests hold a "fixing the space" hackathon
• b-sides nov4-5, looking for speakers
• should get update photos for the computer for refugees soon
• member suggests creating strikeforce to update wiki, webpage, member intake process etc.
• motion to turn air cond. back on

July 25, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Members: 8
• 3D Printing Workshop over here. IEEE might be sponsoring refreshments? 5 or 6 talks. Reverse engineering Tiko. Retrofitting the motors, etc.
• Ai-Kon went good. We had a lot of interest and there were no hiccups. It was like a mini comic-con.
• Financial news:
  • We're seeing a spike in members after all last month's memberships started coming through. We won't be relying quite as hard on event funds, but those will still be necessary for now.
  • We're still in that four-month period every summer where we're paying for insurance. We're continuing a downward trent, but we shouldn't fall below where we were in February.
• Our air conditioner might have problems. It seems to be working now, but we'll keep an eye on it. Someone predicted a few years ago that it was on its last legs.

June 27, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Intros
• 3D printing intro day - stay tuned for sometime this summer
• X-Carl is now operational once again (thanks Edwin!)
• Finances appear to be stabilizing
• New Keyfobs are in - rejoice!
• Mark Jenkins is presenting a talk at the space tomorrow - "Resisting the Surveillance State"
• SkullSpace fund2013 minutes are at Meeting_notes\2013

raising campaign is active - check out http://skull.space/summer - Donation matching!

• Michael K is still looking for volunteers for the AiKon table, hit him up if you are available!
• Temporary water service is now in effect @ 374 Donald
• Unix Epoch rollover to 1500000000 is happening on July 13 - stay tuned for an event announcement

May 30, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Intros
• April minutes read
• 72 Princess location for social- Chris made preliminary contact.
• Free credit pinball today
• Two pinball events still to come - contact Manitoba Pinball Asc. or just show in interested
• Edwin asked developer for discount on KISS slicer. Developer gave gave us a free licence
• Edwin and Thor experimenting with mater control for 3d printer
• X-Carl may have a damaged arduino and/or X-axis stepper driver
• Edwin ordered replacement and upgrade parts for Carl
• Edwin looking for Windows Vista licence for some bizarre reason
• 1st pinball event happened, it was fun
• Papers we love happened it wen well, apparently it's on YouTube
• Student films screening event being planned
• cyber-defense challenge happened, it went well
• Front street being torn up from June 8 - July 27, good luck parking.
• sandbox table still incomplete and broken
• abridged financial report because scripts were configured for USD not CAD. Micheal may email complete report after meeting

April 25, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Introductions
• We read the minutes from last week.
• Adrian had a suggestion for an Anti-Social space. 72 Princess, third floor, $450.
  • Freight elevator if needed.
• Financial Report:
  • We had made some money from events, so we're holding steady.
  • We have a couple new members.
  • The insurance payments in the summer are what usually do us in.
  • Member dues essentially pay for rent. We rely on donations and event revenue to cover insurance and utilities.
• Plans for the floor? Getting ends of linoleum would be nice and cheap. We should be able to just roll it out without gluing.
• Chris's friend has some ideas on how to decorate the place.

April 11, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald - Special Meeting

• Meeting held to vote on proposed amendments that were not voted on during 2017 AGM due to procedural error.
  • Due to not meeting a quorum, the bylaw amendments were not voted on.

March 28, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Meeting called
• Approved previous minutes
• Financial report: Looks okay. We had a good event with the synth meetup, so we probably aren't losing anything this month. Michael doesn't have the bank records at the moment.
• Why is the door always locked now?
  • The architects lock it at 5:00?
• A lot of members had applied lately, and we're contacting them one by one.
• Hackaday is hiring contract writers! Writing about projects and such, so apply today.
  • (P.S. we should document all the neat stuff we do here.)
• Was there money in our fund to purchase upholstery?
  • So Chris had the idea to get furniture to make our space better.
  • More flooring! Stuff like that.
  • We need lockers, too. Costco has a sale.
    • We can probably get old ones from Habitat for Humanity, too.
  • We took a vote. The people who didn't show up will never know.
• Flickr is full of pictures from other events, but never anything in our space. We should take more photos in the space.
• Edwin talked about pinball and such. Virtual pinball, etc.
• We've got an orange (the construction type) SkullSpace toque for sale.
• Marcel is looking for a video camera (camcorder?) for an upcoming trip. He was looking for something "a step up from an iPhone."
• Upcoming events:
  • Ron's CTF event this Saturday
  • Manitoba Comic Con this Saturday and Sunday. We have a table.

February 28, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald - Annual General Meeting

• Introduction
• Announced bylaw meeting which will come up after the AGM.
  • Give us suggestions if you missed them
  • We will announce the meeting for voting three weeks in advance
• Financial update for the year
  • This month's projection still shows downward slope, two months left
  • We're losing ~$300 per month until the major expense of insurance kills us
  • Balance seems high at $13,000 but liabilites are at ~$10,000
  • Yearly figures show earnings of $30,000 and $24,000 expenses
  • High donation amount, power's been a consistent expense
  • Expenses were surprisingly even with earnings
• Year in review
  • Members who have come and gone
  • Events we ran this year
    • Months electronics workshops in the beginning
    • 3D Printing Events
    • Comic Con
    • Jimcon
    • Aikon's Winterfest
    • GIS Event
    • Weekly drone events
    • Computer Refurb
  • Space change
    • Great purge of 2017
    • Adrian rekagiggered the server rack
    • Sean improved our Wifi
    • We no longer have VOI as a provider internet
    • Winnitron is now updated with new games
  • Projects of the year
    • Pong game with Troy and Edwin
    • PDP-8 restoration by Adrian
    • Arcade Joystick
    • Bluetooth hacking with Troy and Edwin
    • Ben's ball-o-buttons
    • Synthesizer modules created by Jordan Justice
    • RAM dumping by programming
    • Netbright signs with Jay

January 31, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Meeting called 6:00pm
• FPV update
  • FPV Wing build moved to Feb 23rd
  • discontinuing the regular FPV extravaganza until further notice, lack of interest
• Members: Read the Bylaws and propose any changes
  • announce proposed changes to bylaws on Feb 7th (still waiting for members to submit proposed changes)
• Synthesizer petting zoo is gaining momentum
• Bylaw amendment ideas
  • requiring invitation to apply for membership seems outdated as per our recent practices
  • one guest per member in the space rule
  • need to update wiki as per meeting requirements
• Finances!!!! - see report here
  • forecast: early April is when we die should we not grow our membership
  • next big upfront payment - july?? need to confirm
• Membership strategies: we need to throw more events to gain more members! Our efforts reflect membership growth, need to keep up the good work
  • Government Grants - paying for events, supplies
  • IEEE wpg section?
• Malware analysis was well attended
• Teddy Ruxpin > Furby
• POS terminals working - for snacks!?!?!?
• KeyFOBs should be hear by Feb 3rd
• Meeting adjourned @ 18:41